Michael Brissenden presents AM Monday to Friday from 8:00am on ABC Local Radio and 7:10am on Radio National. Join Elizabeth Jackson for the Saturday edition at 8am on Local Radio and 7am on Radio National.

UN declares tough sanctions on North Korea

AM - Monday, 16 October , 2006 08:24:00

Reporter: Shane McLeod

TONY EASTLEY: The United Nations Security Council has declared tough sanctions against North Korea. Now it's a question of who's going to enforce them.

The sanctions provide for the inspection of cargo heading to and from North Korea, looking for prohibited weapons and luxury goods.

But as North Asia Correspondent Shane McLeod reports, there's not much appetite for a military force to be inspecting North Korean cargo on the high seas.

SHANE MCLEOD: China's ambassador to the UN, Wang Guan Gya, was casting doubt on interpretation of the sanctions almost immediately after the votes were tallied.

WANG GUAN GYA: I think that for China, our political position is, we are not in favour of inspections, because for a number of years, as a general principle, we feel that it will lead to negative consequences.

SHANE MCLEOD: South Korea is also less than enthusiastic about a blockade.

Senior figures within the governing Uri Party in Seoul have expressed concern about conflict if North Korean cargo is intercepted on the high seas.

Only a few countries have shown much interest in such a mission. One is Australia, which has offered its military as part of an international force.

The other is Japan, which has already imposed its own trade and shipping embargo on North Korea.

"Japan will work closely together with other nations," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says, "to prevent North Korea possessing nuclear weapons and stop nuclear proliferation in line with the UN resolution."

But far from Japan instituting a blockade, the legal limits on its self-defence force mean it will only be able to provide logistical support for others taking part.

Peter Beck is the North Asia Project Director with the International Crisis Group, and he believes the sanctions agreed to in New York will have more of a symbolic role.

PETER BECK: Well, the Chinese Ambassador to the UN indicated right after the vote that China's not going to participate in the introduction of ships on the high seas. South Korea certainly won't. And neither one, at this point, is ready to forsake North Korea and cut them off economically.

And so really, the sanctions resolution is a symbolic gesture more than anything else, given that the countries that are still… it really only covers the military sphere, and the only countries that are continuing to trade with the North there are the ones that ignore UN resolutions anyway, like Iran, Syria and those countries.

SHANE MCLEOD: The North Korean nuclear test has brought on discussion of a normally taboo subject - nuclear weapons for Japan.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said it's not a consideration for his country, pointing to the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But at the weekend one of his senior MPs seemed to contradict him.

Shoichi Nakagawa, the head of the governing Liberal Democratic Party's policy council, said there should be an active debate on whether nuclear weapons were needed for Japan's defence.

Mr Nakagawa says he's not arguing the case, but says discussion is needed - more evidence that the consequences of Pyongyang's nuclear test may take time to emerge.